Posted on 08/13/2015 12:41:23 PM PDT by conservativejoy
The Colorado Court of Appeals rejected the argument that religious beliefs were sufficient grounds to deny service to samesex couples.
A state appeals court in Colorado ruled Thursday that a baker could not cite religious beliefs in refusing to make wedding cakes for same-sex couples.
The decision is the latest in a series of similar rulings across the country that have been cheered by civil rights groups but attacked by conservative Christians as assaults on religious liberty.
Whether photographers, florists, bakers and other vendors who are Christians should have a right to refuse services for same-sex marriages has emerged as a major cultural and legal battle, one that has intensified since the Supreme Court decision in June establishing same-sex marriage as a constitutional right.
Jack Phillips at his business, Masterpiece Cakeshop. His refusal to make a wedding cake for a gay couple is heading to court.
Can’t Have Your Cake, Gays Are Told, and a Rights Battle RisesDEC. 15, 2014
Jack Phillips, who refused a gay couple’s cake order, at his bakery in Lakewood, Colo.
States Weigh Gay Marriage, Rights and CakeJULY 7, 2015
In the Colorado case, “the court squarely said that this is discrimination based on sexual orientation and it’s not to be tolerated, even if it’s motivated by faith,” said Louise Melling, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the gay couple. “Religious liberty gives you the right to your beliefs but not the right to harm others.”
But lawyers for the cake shop said the appeals panel “got it wrong” and that they would probably appeal to Colorado’s Supreme Court.
“Our client did not engage in sexual-orientation discrimination,” said Jeremy Tedesco, a senior lawyer with Alliance Defending Freedom, the Christian legal group based in Arizona. He argued that an objection to same-sex marriage was not the same as discriminating against a gay person and noted that the baker, Jack Phillips, of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colo., also refused to make cakes celebrating Halloween because he associates the holiday with Satan.
“Cake decorating is his medium for creating art and they are compelling him to engage in artistic expression that violates his beliefs,” Mr. Tedesco said, resulting in a trampling of his First Amendment rights to freedom of expression and religion.
But a unanimous three-judge panel of the Colorado Court of Appeals, in upholding the decision of the state Commission on Human Rights, rejected the argument that selling a cake to a gay couple was so great an infringement on Mr. Phillip’s beliefs that it trumped the anti-discrimination law.
No reasonable observer, the decision said, “would interpret Masterpiece’s providing a wedding cake for a same-sex couple as an endorsement of same-sex marriage, rather than a reflection of its desire to conduct business in accordance with Colorado’s public accommodations law.”
In July of 2012, a gay couple asked Masterpiece to create a wedding cake for a celebration of their marriage. Mr. Phillips told them that he could not design and bake a cake for them because it would violate his Christian convictions.
The couple, Charlie Craig and David Mullins, filed a complaint under Colorado law, which bars discrimination in public accommodations based on sexual orientation. An administrative law judge and then the Colorado Civil Rights Commission both ruled that the cake shop had engaged in illegal discrimination.
Neither the law nor Thursday’s ruling prevents Mr. Phillips’ shop “from expressing its views on same-sex marriage — including its religious opposition to it — and the bakery remains free to dissociate itself from its customers’ viewpoints,” the appeals court stated.
In a case involving similar arguments over artistic expression, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that a photographer who refused to photograph a same-sex wedding had violated an anti-discrimination law'
Those crazy little god wannabes in the black robes are at it again.
Feature a special Queer Cake in future?!
Why do we put up with this sort of crap?
it appears the court ignored this argument altogether.
Outrageous.
If it is all about what 2 people do in the privacy of their own bedroom, why are others forced to service it?
The quality of my cakes varies, depending on the depth of my inspiration and motivation.
Another bad state soopreme kort.
The 1st Amendment could not be clearer. Will the Supreme Court uphold it? They’ve pretty much ignored the Constitution lately.
Colorado has the justice system they deserve. If there is a majority of conservatives, they need to wake up and clean house before they are sent to concentration camps.
So go right to your nearest HALAL food store and demand they serve you some BACON
To me, this means the baker is free to include a statement regarding his opposition to "gay marriage" on every "gay wedding" cake he decorates.
That opens up some interesting and creative cake decorating possibilities - one or more of which is/are bound to be successful in discourage those who would force him to make "gay wedding" cakes.
The courts are hopeless. The whole judicial system needs to be thrown out and something better is needed to replace it. Anything would be better than the BS we have to put up with now. The judiciary is very anti-American.
He should appeal to the Supreme Court. Let’s see what they would say. Get the popcorn.
I think we are a nation ruled by the judiciary and not the people. The Americans love to have it so.
It looks like these queers are targeting Christian bakers. They should try their act out on the Muslim bakeries, especially if they can find one located in a tall building.
Another communist goal is achieved.
Remember when Colorado was real he man country, Rocky Mountain West? Does it disappoint anyone else to see it turn into a haven for limp-wristed, dope-logged p**sies whose number one concern is whether someone will bake a cake for them. A whole lot of the real men who tamed the Colorado west must be spinning in their graves.
“I think we are a nation ruled by the judiciary and not the people.”
“Judiciary” is just a euphemism for lawyers - we are a nation ruled by lawyers.
I don’t get this. Didn’t the Hobby Lobby decision by the USSC decide this issue? Isn’t it the law of the land in all States? How is this different?
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